The Round-the-Clock Market for U.S. Treasury Securities

The Round-the-Clock Market for U.S. Treasury Securities

Michael J. Fleming

The U.S. Treasury securities market is one of the most important financial markets in the world. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds are issued by the federal government in the primary market to finance its budget deficits and meet its short-term cash-management needs. In the secondary market, the Federal Reserve System conducts monetary policy through open market purchases and sales of Treasury securities. Because the securities are near-risk-free instruments, they also serve as a benchmark for pricing numerous other financial instruments. In addition, Treasury securities are used extensively for hedging, an application that improves the liquidity of other financial markets.

The Treasury market is also one of the world's largest and most liquid financial markets. Daily trading volume in the secondary market averages $125 billion.1 Trading takes place overseas as well as in New York, resulting in a virtual round-the-clock market. Positions are bought and sold in seconds in an interdealer market, with trade sizes starting at $1 million for notes and bonds and $5 million

for bills. Competition among dealers and interdealer brokers ensures narrow bid-ask spreads for most securities and minimal interdealer brokerage fees.

Despite the Treasury market's importance, size, and liquidity, there is little quantitative evidence on its intraday functioning. Intraday analysis of trading volume and the bid-ask spread is valuable, however, for ascertaining how market liquidity changes throughout the day. Such information is important to hedgers and other market participants who may need to trade at any moment and to investors who rely on a liquid Treasury market for the pricing of other securities or for tracking market sentiment. Intraday analysis of price volatility can also reveal when new information gets incorporated into prices and shed light on the determinants of Treasury prices. Finally, analysis of price behavior can be used to test the intraday efficiency of the Treasury market by determining, for example, whether overseas price changes reflect new information that is subsequently incorporated into prices in New York.

This article provides the first detailed intraday

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analysis of the round-the-clock market for U.S. Treasury securities. The analysis, covering the period from April 4 to August 19, 1994, uses comprehensive data on trading activity among the primary government securities dealers.2 Trading volume, price volatility, and bid-ask spreads are

The Treasury market is . . . one of the world's

largest and most liquid financial markets.

Daily trading volume in the secondary market

averages $125 billion.

examined for the three major trading locations--New York, London, and Tokyo--as well as for each half-hour interval of the global trading day. Price efficiency across trading locations is also tested by examining the relationship between price changes observed overseas and overnight price changes in New York.

The analysis reveals that trading volume and price volatility are highly concentrated in New York trading hours, with a daily peak between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. and a smaller peak between 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Bid-ask spreads are found to be wider overseas than in New York and wider in Tokyo than in London. Despite lower overseas liquidity, overseas price changes in U.S. Treasury securities emerge as unbiased predictors of overnight New York price changes.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE SECONDARY MARKET

Secondary trading in U.S. Treasury securities occurs primarily in an over-the-counter market rather than through an organized exchange.3 Although 1,700 brokers and dealers trade in the secondary market, the 39 primary government securities dealers account for the majority of trading volume (Appendix A).4 Primary dealers are firms with which the Federal Reserve Bank of New York interacts directly in the course of its open market operations. They include large diversified securities firms, money center banks, and specialized securities firms, and are foreign- as well

as U.S.-owned. Over time, the number of primary dealers can change, as it did most recently with the addition of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson North America LLC.

Among their responsibilities, primary dealers are expected to participate meaningfully at auction, make reasonably good markets in their trading relationships with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's trading desk, and supply market information to the Fed. Formerly, primary dealers were also required to transact a certain level of trading volume with customers and thereby maintain a liquid secondary market for Treasury securities. Customers include nonprimary dealers, other financial institutions (such as banks, insurance companies, pension funds, and mutual funds), nonfinancial institutions, and individuals. Although trading with customers is no longer a requirement, primary dealers remain the predominant market makers in U.S. Treasury securities, buying and selling securities for their own account at their quoted bid and ask prices.

Primary dealers also trade among themselves, either directly or through interdealer brokers.5 Interdealer brokers collect and post dealer quotes and execute trades between dealers, thereby facilitating information flows in the market while providing anonymity to the trading dealers. For the most part, interdealer brokers act only as agents. For their service, the brokers collect a fee from the trade initiator: typically $12.50 per $1 million on three-month bills (1/2 of a 100th of a point), $25.00 per $1 million on six-month and one-year bills (1/2 and 1/4 of a 100th of a point, respectively), and $39.06 per $1 million on notes and bonds (1/8 of a 32nd of a point).6 The fees are negotiable, however, and can vary with volume.

The exchange of securities for funds typically occurs one business day after agreement on the trade. Settlement takes place either on the books of a depository institution or between depository institutions through the Federal Reserve's Fedwire securities transfer system. Clearance and settlement activity among primary dealers and other active market participants occurs primarily through the Government Securities Clearance Corporation (GSCC). The GSCC compares and nets member trades, thereby reducing the number of transactions through Fedwire and decreasing members' counterparty credit risk.

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The level of trading activity among the various Treasury securities market participants is extremely high (see exhibit). Between April and August of 1994--the period examined in this article--trades involving primary

Daily Trading Volume of U.S. Treasury Securities

April to August 1994

Total $125.5 billion

Customer?Primary Dealer $67.0 billion

Primary Dealer?Primary Dealer $58.5 billion

Interdealer Broker $53.5 billion

No Intermediary $4.9 billion

Source: Author's calculations, based on data from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Notes: The exhibit shows the mean daily volume of secondary trading in the cash market as reported to the Federal Reserve by the primary dealers. Because the reporting data changed in July 1994, all figures are estimated based on full-year 1994 activity. The figures are also adjusted to eliminate double counting (trades between primary dealers are counted only once).

dealers in the secondary market averaged about $125 billion per day.7 More than half the volume involved primary dealer trades with customers, with the remainder involving trades between primary dealers. The vast majority of the $58.5 billion interdealer volume occurred through interdealer brokers. Activity data from these brokers form the basis of much of the analysis in this article (see box).

TRADING HOURS AND LOCATIONS

Trading hours for U.S. Treasury securities have lengthened in line with the growth of the federal debt, the increase in foreign purchases of Treasuries, and the globalization of the financial services industry.8 Trading now takes place twenty-two hours a day, five days a week (Chart 1).9 The global trading day for U.S. Treasury securities begins at 8:30 a.m. local time in Tokyo, which is 7:30 p.m. New York daylight saving time (DST).10 Trading continues until roughly 4 p.m. local time in Tokyo (3 a.m. New York), when trading passes to London, where it is 8 a.m.

INTERDEALER BROKER DATA

This article analyzes interdealer broker data obtained from GovPX, Inc., a joint venture of the primary dealers and several interdealer brokers set up under the guidance of the Public Securities Association (an industry trade group).a GovPX was formed in 1991 to increase public access to U.S. Treasury security prices (Wall Street Journal 1991).

GovPX consolidates and posts real-time quote and trade data from five of the six major interdealer brokers, which together account for about two-thirds of the interdealer broker market. Posted data include the best bids and offers, trade price and size, and aggregate volume traded for all Treasury bills, notes, and bonds. GovPX data are distributed electronically to the public through several on-line vendors such as Bloomberg, Knight-Ridder, and Reuters.

The data for this article include the quote and trade data for all "when-issued" and "on-the-run" securities in the cash market. When-issued securities are securities that have

been announced for auction but not yet issued. On-the-run securities (also called active or current) are the most recently issued securities of a given maturity. Off-the-run (or inactive) securities, by contrast, are issued securities that are no longer active. Daily volume data obtained from GovPX reveal that 64 percent of interdealer trading is in on-the-run issues, 12 percent is in when-issued securities, and 24 percent is in off-the-run securities.

The period examined is April 4 to August 19, 1994. After holidays and missing data are excluded, ninety days from this twenty-week period are left for analysis.b An average of 2,702 trades a day were posted by GovPX in the sample period, along with 9,888 bid-ask spreads. For tractability purposes, the day is divided into half-hour periods. Trading locations are also assigned on the basis of the time of day a quote or trade was made (Chart 1). Appendix B discusses the data in more detail, including data cleaning and processing.

aThe Public Securities Association has since changed its name to PSA, The Bond Market Trade Association. bThe market was closed in New York on three days, in Tokyo on four days, and in London on an additional two days during this period. One day was dropped because of missing data. End-of-day New York prices are used, when applicable, for the six overseas holidays to maintain as large a sample as possible.

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Chart 1

Trading Times for U.S. Treasury Securities

6 p.m.

,,,, Noon,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,93,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ap..mm,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.. N,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ew,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Y,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ork,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,London

Tokyo

9 p.m. 3 a.m.

Midnight

6 a.m.

Notes: The chart shows the breakdown by location of interdealer trading over the global trading day. Crossover times are approximate because interdealer trading occurs over the counter and may be initiated from anywhere. All times are New York daylight saving time.

At about 12:30 p.m. local time in London, trading passes to New York, where it is 7:30 a.m. Trading continues in New York until 5:30 p.m.

Although it is convenient to think of trading occurring in three distinct geographic locations, a trade may originate anywhere. For example, business hours among the locations overlap somewhat: traders in London may continue to transact in their afternoon while morning activity picks up in New York. Traders may also transact from one location during another location's business hours. In fact, some primary dealers have traders working around the clock, but all from a single location (Stigum 1990, p. 471).

Regardless of location, the trading process for U.S. Treasuries is the same. The same securities are traded by the same dealers through the same interdealer brokers with the same brokerage fees. Trades agreed upon during overseas hours typically settle as New York trades do--one business day later in New York through the GSCC.11

TRADING ACTIVITY BY LOCATION

Although the U.S. Treasury securities market is an overthe-counter market with round-the-clock trading, more than 94 percent of that trading occurs in New York, on average, with less than 4 percent in London and less than 2 percent in Tokyo (Table 1).12 While each location's share of daily volume varies across days, New York hours always comprise the vast majority (at least 87.5 percent) of daily trading.13 This is not particularly surprising since Treasury

Although the U.S. Treasury securities market is an over-the-counter market with round-the-clock trading, more than 94 percent of that trading occurs in New York, on average, with less than 4 percent in London and less than 2 percent in Tokyo.

securities are obligations of the U.S. government: most macroeconomic reports and policy changes of relevance to Treasury securities are announced during New York trading hours, and most owners of Treasury securities are U.S. institutions or individuals.14

The share of U.S. Treasuries traded overseas, while small, can vary substantially. London reached its

Table 1

TRADING VOLUME OF U.S. TREASURY SECURITIES BY LOCATION

April 4 to August 19, 1994

Mean Standard deviation Minimum Maximum

Tokyo 1.84 1.06 0.14 6.61

London 3.50 1.40 0.55 7.93

New York 94.66 2.08 87.53 98.75

Source: Author's calculations, based on data from GovPX, Inc.

Note: The table reports the percentage distribution of daily interdealer trading volume by location for on-the-run and when-issued securities.

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highest share of daily volume (7.9 percent) in the sample period on Friday, August 19, 1994. Tokyo reached its highest share (6.6 percent) on Friday, July 1, 1994. News reports indicate that dollar-yen movements drove overseas activity on both days. Overseas activity was also relatively high on July 1 because of a shortened New York session ahead of the July 4 weekend.

A more thorough examination of news stories on days when the overseas locations were particularly active or volatile suggests several reasons why U.S. Treasuries trade overseas:

? late afternoon New York activity spills over to the overseas trading locations (April 6);

? overnight activity in the foreign exchange market impacts the Treasury market (June 24);

? other overnight events occur--for example, comments are made by a government official during overseas hours (June 8);

? news is released during overnight hours--for instance, a U.S. newspaper article appears during overseas hours (June 21);

? overseas investors are active during overseas hours (August 17);

? central bank intervention occurs during overseas hours (May 10).

Overseas locations thus allow traders to adjust positions in response to overnight events and give foreign investors and institutions the opportunity to trade during their own business hours.

On a typical weekday, trading starts at 7:30 p.m. New York DST with relatively low volume throughout Tokyo hours (Chart 2). Volume picks up somewhat when London opens at 3 a.m. (New York DST) and remains fairly steady through London trading hours. Volume jumps higher in the first half hour of New York trading (7:30 a.m. to 8 a.m.), then spikes upward in the next half hour of trading. Volume reaches a daily peak between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. Except for a small peak from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., volume generally falls until the 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. interval.

Volume rises again to a peak between 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m., then quickly tapers off, with trading ending by 5:30 p.m. New York DST.

Overseas locations . . . allow traders to adjust positions in response to overnight events and give foreign investors and institutions the opportunity to trade during their own business hours.

The pattern of U.S. Treasuries trading between 8:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. parallels that of equity markets trading. Several studies of equity securities (such as Jain and Joh [1988] and McInish and Wood [1990]) have found

Chart 2

Trading Volume of U.S. Treasury Securities by Half Hour

April 4 to August 19, 1994

Percent 10

Tokyo

London

New York

8

6

4

2

0 6 p.m.

9 p.m. Midnight 3 a.m. 6 a.m. 9 a.m. Noon New York daylight saving time

3 p.m. 6 p.m.

Source: Author's calculations, based on data from GovPX, Inc.

Notes: The chart shows the mean half-hourly interdealer trading volume as a percentage of mean daily interdealer trading volume for on-the-run and when-issued securities. The times on the horizontal axis indicate the beginning of intervals (for example, 9 a.m. for 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.).

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